The further playing up of this rift between the petitioners and NRA in the McDonald case, both at Cato again, and also in the Washington Post, seems to be a distraction from the necessary task of winning the case. I didn’t think the motion was a smart thing either, but what’s done is done, and I hope the parties can manage to bury the hatchet at least until the case is won.

9 Responses to “Winning McDonald”

The NRA has undoubtedly done a lot for gun owners over the years, but I have lost a LOT of respect for them after this stunt. It is painfully obvious with this move that their desire to self-promote and claim some shred of credit for the potential success of McDonald outweighs their stated mission. So much so, that they have ignorantly created a wedge issue in one of the most important 2nd Amendment cases ever to be heard before the Supreme Court, dividing our resources, opinions, and efforts when we should be focusing on them. And don’t think for one minute Chicago isn’t going to try and take advantage of that.

I guess the NRA believes their mission, i.e. preserving and protecting our 2nd Amendment rights, isn’t as important as preserving the glory of the NRA. Especially when it means taking a back seat to Alan Gura, a proven lawyer who has shown he can indeed win without their help.

As I’ve said, I don’t believe credit was a primary motivator in this. They have a lot to lose if things go sour, and I have a feeling Clement is going to be forced to concede some things NRA would probably not like publicly concede.

At the least I should say that I don’t expect the genesis of this was the leadership in ILA gathered around a table trying to come up with ways they could inject themselves into the case in order to take credit for the outcome. Even if NRA needing to be involved was in the back of people’s minds, they would at least need to justify to themselves why it was the right thing to do for the issue.

Some NRA magazine articles and press releases have minimized or even failed to mention Gura’s involvement in Heller and implied a larger NRA role than they actually had. This track record of bad faith reporting forces anyone who genuinely favors Gura’s current approach in McDonald to make a hard choice between continuing a food fight NRA started, or failing to get sincere arguments on the record when it matters.

I’ll be honest Dave R, if you look at the big picture, and not just specifically the Heller case, I would say that NRA had a bigger role in the victory than Alan Gura, because they funded most of the scholarship, and helped elect the politicians who nominated and confirmed the justices who made the victory possible. We should never forget that.

Gura was at the right place, at the right time, with the right case. That’s not at all to detract from his formidable skills as a lawyer, or to detract from the fact that he realized before everyone else that “now is the time,” but if it wasn’t for the groundwork laid previously, it wouldn’t have happened.

That said, they do have a history of blowing their own horn and minimizing the role of others, and I have no doubt they’ll blow their own horn if McDonald wins. That’s what NRA does. But like I said, I’m doubtful the genesis of this was top ILA people sitting around trying to figure out how to take credit.